Show HN: InstantCryptor – AES256 Encryption for Dropbox and Google Drive - <AUTHOR> https://instantcryptor.com/index.html <comment><USER2> >> The password will be hashed with the SHA256 algorithm, the mode for encryption is 256 Bit Rijndael/AES

SHA256 is not a KDF, AES-256 is not a block cipher mode. Where is the source code?

<comment><USER3> I really dislike when companies say it their product encrypts with "256-bit encryption" or "AES-256". Like you said, that is an incomplete description of an encryption scheme. The choice of block cipher mode can immediately make or break my opinion of a product, and when developers omit what mode they've chosen, I lean toward break.

<comment><USER4> At least it's not "military-grade encryption".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> @all: thanks a lot for your feedback! It's good to see that so many people care about security. To quickly summarize your questions: We are using the secure CBC mode and have always used it ;) You can have a look on the source code directly on the website (because it's all client side JavaScript), but some parts of it are minified. We are working on a detailed description of the technology behind InstantCryptor and will publish it soon via Twitter (@cloudrail). If you are interested in the technology to easily add cloud storage into your application visit cloudrail.com to get a free copy.

<comment><USER4> It seems you have an authentication problem:

[https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-497-Notes.pdf](https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-497-Notes.pdf)

There should be more details here after the show will be recorded (live now): [http://twit.tv/show/security-now/497](http://twit.tv/show/security-now/497)

I think using ChaCha20-Poly1305 instead of AES-CBC would solve that problem.

[https://www.imperialviolet.org/2013/10/07/chacha20.html](https://www.imperialviolet.org/2013/10/07/chacha20.html)

<comment><USER5> I don't know that I'd necessary push for ChaCha20, but lack of ciphertext authentication is a clear problem. AES-GCM or even AES-CBC with an HMAC that's validated prior to decryption can provide the needed authenticity checks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've built a similar piece of javascript crypto: PasswordProtectMyFile.com. It's a single HTML page that can work with internet turned off. The ciphertext is another HTML page with all the javascript needed to decrypt itself.

It's open source: [https://github.com/louissobel/ppmf](https://github.com/louissobel/ppmf)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We are using CBC as block cipher mode. I totally understand that open sourcing the complete code is the only way for you to review it and trust it completely. We decided to write a detailed report about the encryption and how we use it and will publish the report soon via Twitter.

<comment><USER7> CBC mode by itself is insecure.

<comment><USER8> OP: You should listen to tptacek. He's forgotten more about crypto than some people have ever learned. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> A small side project to encrypt files for Dropbox and Google Drive. Encryption happens locally in the browser via JavaScript. The key never leaves the local computer. Happy for any feedback or comments ;)

<comment><USER9> _Happy for any feedback or comments_

Don't put your crypto experiments online where they could harm someone who naively relies on them.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, look what happened when someone leaked Ron Rivest's RC4 cipher. People still naively rely on it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Even with proper algorithms, per-file encryption leaks quite a lot of meta- data, sizes and usage patterns; also the cloud provider can transparently delete, corrupt and revert files to previous versions.

<comment> java-man I wrote a backup/archive tool [0] that uses authenticated encryption, scrypt, and local key management. The only thing it leaks [1] is the amount of new data added on each snapshot.

[0] [http://goryachev.com/products/secure- archive](http://goryachev.com/products/secure-archive)

[1] hopefully

</comment></comment><comment> java-man An encrypted archive with browsing, revision history, and search:

[http://goryachev.com/products/secure- archive](http://goryachev.com/products/secure-archive)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> And we do not store or even transfer your Dropbox or Google password on our servers. It runs locally in your browser. Feel free to double check this in the source code ;)

<comment><USER3> Can you link to the source code? In the 2-3 minutes I've spent searching, I can't find it.

<comment><USER11> If it's all client side JavaScript, then the source code is the webpage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> [http://syncthing.net/](http://syncthing.net/) open source and transit encrypted between computers you control.

</comment><comment><USER8> Two things:

1\. Cryptor is usually the word used by criminals to describe payload obfuscation to evade antivirus detection.

2\. Momma says closed-source crypto is the devil.

<comment><USER13> 1\. You're confusing "cryptor" with "crypter"

2\. "Closed source" and javascript don't really work together.

<comment><USER8> I've seen it spelled both ways. Usually on HackForums (a.k.a. the massive script kiddie honeypot).

<comment><USER13> site:hackforums.net cryptor About 1,790 results (0.32 seconds)

vs

site:hackforums.net crypter About 62,700 results (0.36 seconds)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> ooh. I made an app that encrypts files on Android written in Java and has a C# written client for Windows. I have released the java source code. I should post it here on HN to look at it and rip me a new one. What I am sketchy about is how does embedding an unencrypted salt used for the PBKDF2 in the file not potentially make guessing of the passphrase easier

<comment><USER11> To answer your question about the the salt and the PBKDF2: salt ensures that the hash of my password is different from someone else's, even if we use the same password (or I use the same password on another site). Thus, if someone has the hashes, and wants to attack the system, then need to attack each password independently (they can't just run a password dictionary through the PKDF2 (or SHA256 in this case - very bad choice)) and then compare the results against all of the password hashes. They have to start with the salt (different for each user), and then run each password guess through the algorithm. Much slower. Much better.

Which brings us to PBKDF2 instead of SHA256: SHA256 is designed to be fast. That's bad when hashing passwords, because it makes offline dictionary-based attacks faster. Password Derivation functions are designed to be slow. That makes logging on very slightly slower, but makes offline attacks much, much slower.

However, doing the encryption in Javascript is a fatal problem: At any time, they can update (or be forced to update) the javascript to send the server my password when I use it, and the only way I can protect myself from this is to audit the code, EVERY TIME I USE IT.

<comment><USER15> Why do you consider unsalted SHA-256 a bad choice here? If neither the password nor its hash are stored and the hash is merely used as a key for the CBC, I don't see how anyone could construct rainbow tables for that. Care to explain?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This should be released as OpenSource.</comment>


Show HN: Komiser – Detect potential GCP cost savings - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9ceVwF8rTo <comment><AUTHOR> let me know what you guys think</comment>


Calculating PI with bc - <AUTHOR> http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/calculating-pi/ <comment><AUTHOR>
        time echo "scale=10000; 4*a(1)" | bc -l

        3.141592...

        real  2m33.930s
        user  2m32.304s
        sys	  0m1.308s

<comment><USER2> I also tried "6*a(1/sqrt(3))". On my machine, it only took 1m36.243s instead of 1m58.411s. I wonder what determines the execution time.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the most impressive thing "other than this startup" you've done? - <AUTHOR> I'm not asking to start a posturing or bragging contest. I'm actually curious to see some kind of sample of impressive things. I've already submitted my own answer on the application, I wonder what variety of things people have answered on their own.<p>pg - If this amounts to some sort of cheating, please let me know. That's not intended. On another thread I saw someone talk about their interest in other people's answers and realized I am as well. <comment><USER2> I flooded part of the University of Cambridge.

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1287372/Cambridge- st...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1287372/Cambridge-students- create-200m-canal-punt-May-Ball.html)

<comment><USER3> Impressive! How deep was it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I mentioned mine on that other thread[1], but basically these are the main things I can come up with that seem even slightly worthwhile:

1\. I was formerly Fire Chief of a volunteer fire department, and one of the youngest people to hold that position in my area.

2\. I was one the youngest, if not the youngest, Firefighting Instructors certified by the NC State Fire & Rescue Commission.

3\. I ran for Lieutenant Governor of NC, appeared in a statewide televised debate with the other two candidates and got about 125,000 votes (roughly 3%).

[1]: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5220936>

<comment><AUTHOR> Is what you're trying to do related to firefighting?

<comment><USER4> Not in the slightest, sadly. Being a volunteer firefighter and being heavily involved in that world was a big part of my life for about 10 years, and I kinda miss it. But I'm just too busy for it these days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I built my first website using joomla to store university work, upload photos for friends to see and mess about on. It took me a few months, its the ugliest website you'll ever see but I felt proud to have proven to myself that I could do it.

</comment><comment><USER6> I convinced my wife to marry me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha, if that's what you put on the application that's pretty funny. I like it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I completed a 2 year Electronics trade school course in 1 year.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very cool! Thanks for responding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I help organize one of Canada's largest student run technology conference. <http://infect.cutc.ca/>

</comment><comment><USER9> I have planted over half million trees.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow. How long did that take you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I created a self-reliant social enterprise that has helped 150+ at-risk kids.

<comment><USER11> I'd be interested in reading about this as I might be going into teaching at- risk high school kids. Do you have anything written on this or a site I can visit?

<comment><USER10> You can read about my project at

<http://www.charliesfreewheels.ca/social-mission/>

We followed in the footsteps of larger American groups like <https://bikesnotbombs.org>

If you have any questions, please let me know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I circled North America (roughly) on a bicycle.</comment>


Are you making a technology or a technology business? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.keen.io/post/17114593870/dont-just-make-a-technology-make-a-business

<comment><USER2> There's a good article that elevates all the things around our technology product that we'd rather not be doing to a center role in defining our business: <http://www.paulgraham.com/schlep.html></comment>


MLB Already Has a Coronavirus Outbreak. What Happens Now? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2020/7/27/21340269/marlins-coronavirus-outbreak-baseball-games-postponed <comment><USER2> Massive baseball fan here. This has basically destroyed all confidence most serious fans have in the ability to keep playing. They created a 110-page manual, which included all sorts of minutiae, but not when to cancel a game! Ultimately, every organization implementing these sorts of precautions has to decide whether their their precautions are theater or reality; once an organization is found to be participating in this "health theater", how does it convince stakeholders/the public/regulators that it is capable of controlling the situation going forward?

IMHO, MLB's actions here, as with everything they do, is America writ small

EDIT: wording of a sentence for clarity</comment>


Ask HN: Do we live in proto-singularity? - <AUTHOR> Perhaps you could imagine something like Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World where technology is everywhere but nobody knows how it works. We're surrounded by miracles that fewer and fewer of us understand. Technology has started to replace real life almost ubiquitously throughout the human experience. Yet, we are not to the point where computers can solve every problem we mere mortals can imagine.<p>What do you think? Would you classify the world we live in as being in the state of a proto-singularity? <comment> noah-kun The singularity to me, is at best a bad case of seeing a trend and assuming it will forever stay exponentially growing. This mistake has been famously made countless times. Can you really imagine a state of _infinite_ scientific growth and technological development? Of course not. There are upper bounds on what even a planet of scientists and computers can do. Moreover, this singularity hype comes at a time of "austerity" where public funding is decreasing--that should be your biggest indicator of the direction we're going.

At worst, the singularity is a kind of cult-like pseudo-science. And "singularity" is only the newest word for it. Futurists, designers and scientists have been foretelling "leaps and bounds" changes since forever, always ending in disappointment. But sometimes including the sale of vitamins and snake oil that promise longevity.

In the West, our biggest tech companies are scams or making not money (or arguably, social good) at all. Government contracts finance sparse private tech investment. Thought leaders tell of a bright future, only slightly tuned from past futurism to include the latest buzz words. This is a Potemkin village, a carrot on a stick.

Meanwhile China has built out a sprawling high-tech train network, leads the world in wireless infrastructure and even smartphones (sorry, Apply :( ) and is aiming to go 100% electric vehicles. The East and West seem at polar opposites, but still the closest thing to the singularity is in places like Shenzen, China. New operating systems, collective effort towards RISC-V. Even some rumoured use or CRISPR.

But hey, in the West we're making "Twitter but for video" and half a dozen Electron-based Slack-clones! Maybe our multi-billion dollar Pentagon spending will lead to an new fighter jet that works, but I think there is hardly a world-wide effort towards the singularity concept which seems impossible to begin with.

<comment><AUTHOR> What about DeepMind? They are the biggest concentration of Neuroscientists in the world and their founder doesn't dismiss the idea of a "singularity".

But we may have a problem in definitions too. I think most people just mean computers have taken all the jobs and are inventing new healthcare tehnologies, etc. Some silly people who write silly philosophy books do think that super autistic cat video hungry AIs will turn every atom in the universe into computronium but I don't pay much attention to them.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Smartphone for privacy-consious users - <AUTHOR> I'm having a really hard time figuring out what's the best way to obtain a privacy-friendly smartphone.
1. Android with unlocked bootloader and AOSP + F-Droid apps: this looks like it would work but it's really hard to find up-to date info about what manufacturers/models allow to easily unlock the bootloader, and what are the best alternatives in terms of AOSP distributions, what's the best source of information?
2. iOS: is it possible to run iOS while preventing Apple from gathering personal data? Does the above require jailbreaking? Is jailbreaking still commonplace/viable as of 2018? And even then, does iOS have an equivalent of F-Droid?
3. custom OS, such as the Librem by Purism, however these are either very expensive or yet to be available on the market. Or is there any alternative that I haven't heard of?
4. just use a dumb phone. Has anyone here tried it? How did it work for you? <comment><USER2> I actively use a #4 (the Samsung Freeform 5) as my main phone. It supports calling and texting, but that's about it. Works decently for its purpose but you have to remember that you lose the ability to view emojis and read group chats on a dumbphone, plus the web is slower than molasses and you have to send a text if you wanna tweet with it. I don't recommend this and I'm getting supplies to upgrade to an iPhone 4.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, so it has some form of basic web browser right? That would help if for any reason I need to urgently get online even though I suppose it would be a nightmare if you tried to surf the web for longer periods of time.

<comment><USER2> It's a nightmare for any amount of time. The web browser is simply unreliable and I haven't been able to use it at all. I don't recommend this phone for anything other than texting and calling, even the music player sorts by name rather than track number in the album listings.</comment></comment></comment>


Google: Facebook Can't Import Our User Data Any Longer Without Reciprocity - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/04/facebook-google-contacts/ <comment><USER3> I don't get why the author claims this is a move towards google being more closed. All they ask is that you share back. According to that argument the GPL is on the path to closed source.

<comment><USER4> Perhaps closed was the wrong word — it's certainly more restrictive, is it not?

It's my data. If I want to bring it to another service, I should be able to — at least, that's what Google has been saying for a long time now. Even if my data is ultimately going to be locked up in this other site, is that not my decision to make?

<comment><USER5> Export your data to a file. Import your data into whatever app or service you like. All Google is saying is that _if_ some other service wants to scrape your data automatically and with your permission, _then_ they need to let Google do the same, scrape your data with your permission.

<comment><USER4> Valid point, but the hurdle associated with exporting and re-uploading that data is non-trivial for most people. Is it truly portable if a user can't figure out how to take it with them in the first place?

Edit: I should add that I think a fairer exchange of information between Google and Facebook would be a good thing for users. I just think the way Google is doing this conflicts to some degree with their past mission statements regarding users owning their data.

<comment><USER6> Is it truly portable if its impossible to take it with you in the first place? Because thats what Google seems to be fighting _against_ here.

<comment><USER7> Do you think that Google thinks that Facebook is going to give in because of this? They're not fighting anything. It's a convenient excuse for getting their users caught in the crossfire. If Google believes that open data is the right thing to do, then they should be doing it unconditionally, not using it as a bargaining chip.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> All politics and possible ulterior motives aside, this is awesome. I wish more companies made ballsy moves with the intended effect of giving users more control!

<comment><USER9> "the intended effect of giving users more control"

Isn't that a side effect? I would've thought that the intended effect was strengthening Google's position?

<comment><USER10> You're probably right, but I'm quite happy about this. I had to manually get e-mail addresses from Facebook recently to create a wedding-invitee Google contacts list. And there have been several situations when I needed a number from Facebook and had to use my phone to first log into Facebook to get it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yea Google is about 3-4 years too late of when this could have affected Facebook.

<comment><USER12> If nothing else it highlights the Facebook lock-in.

<comment><USER13> Highlights it to whom? Most new users won't realize that the feature existed and no longer works, most current users obviously don't care. The only people who will know about this are people who follow tech news - and we already know that Facebook is closed.

<comment><USER14> This is the beginning of the PR blitz against Facebook's data lock-in by Google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> +1 for Google.

When I used to develop Facebook apps, long ago, the primary was blow was no access to full contact data.

Glad someone with weight is finally standing up and showing them the wrongness of their approach.

</comment><comment><USER16> Google's position is completely fair, but they should probably spend more effort trying to not suck at social, and less effort trying to undermine Facebook.

It's pretty remarkable how poor their social products have been, especially compared to other new product initiatives, like Android.

How can Google save its social strategy at this point (other than by trying to chip away at Facebook with tiny measures like this)?

<comment><USER17> I disagree. I don't want to rely on Google for social. Separation of concerns is very important.

As is data portability. This isn't an anti-competitive move, this is a pro- openness move.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is bad. First of all, while it clearly targets Facebook, what about my confidential work contacts that I upload in salesforce or exchange? Now my company has an obligation to let Google export my contacts?

Second, if you read carefully, the condition is impossible to meet:

 _in a way that's substantially as fast and easy as exporting such data from Google Contacts_

I would argue that since Google claims to be the fastest service out there, no one can be as fast as they are. And when they come with a twice as fast, and one-click export, it will automatically force hundreds of small apps to align or die? That doesn't make any sense and was poorly written.

Third, it's my data. I should own it. If I give permission to give it to Facebook, I don't want Google to have any say or impose any conditions.

<comment><USER19> You're over thinking it.

You still have full control over connecting to Google. If you don't want two- way syncing, and you don't trust it, then don't connect. The clause reads "agreeing to enable your users to"; i.e. you get to decide when data is transfered.

Giving permission to Google to share your Google contacts with Facebook is an inherently different action from giving Facebook permission to share your Facebook contacts with Google. This clause simply ensures that you have the choice to go either or both ways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> "This is a move toward being more closed, though Google is positioning it as a strategy to help make the web more open in the long-term."

This is completely wrong, it is a move towards others being more open. Google is just as open, only demanding reciprocity. So, potential change will result is more openness, since Google is still open and just demanding those who use the data to also be.

</comment><comment><USER21> What is sad about Facebook not allowing users to export their contacts is that they let advertisers and apps have access to your contacts without your permission. I doubt Facebook will do anything about this, it would take their users screaming for it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Facebook could simply work around this. They don't have to use the official API. They probably scrape for AOL/Yahoo/Hotmail. They can do it for Gmail too. Then Google's only recourse would be to sue them. It'd be beautiful too because then we'd get to see Facebook argue in favor of what it doesn't itself allow.

<comment><USER23> AOL, Yahoo, and Hotmail all provide contact APIs. The amount of traffic Facebook generates would be unmistakable and Google would just block them.

<comment><USER22> With a large and diverse enough IP address pool they could probably get around being blocked. It might be cost prohibitive though.

<comment><USER24> also illegal?

<comment><USER22> They could try calling a law enforcement agency claiming Facebook was hacking, but a) they probably wouldn't do that b) the agency would probably tell them it was a civil matter.

Much more likely that it would result in a lawsuit than handcuffs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> While I appreciate this move--Facebook is a silo and you need to be able to get your data out--it's probably too little, too late.

Facebook has half a billion users and this mostly affects you when you sign up. It feels like the ship has sailed.

Also, it'll need some other big players to adopt the same approach: Yahoo and Microsoft for a start.

<comment><USER26> Except Microsoft and Yahoo already negotiated with Facebook for access to their contacts:

"And it has also forged deals with both Hotmail and Yahoo that will let those services access its contact data. Google didn't do a partnership with Facebook, so it doesn't get the goods."

Which makes me more curious why Google did not negotiate a similar deal and why they are trying to force the issue now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> While I don't agree with many of Facebook's privacy decisions, this seems quite heavy handed on Google's side, to me. For google to say - if you use our API, then these are the features you have to provide in your own API - I'm sorry but who is Google to dictate what other companies do with their own data? Who gets to decide what's "Substantially fast", or "Easy"? Google I guess. How is this going to affect us - the small startups and independed developers - what happens when our 'export contacts' function doesn't work fast enough (at Google's sole discretion) and they shut down our access? Sorry, but this sounds borderline evil (disguised as altruism) to me.

<comment><USER28> Google has every right to determine what the price to use their data is. You may not like it, but it's within their rights. To put it another way - <USER2> right do you have to dictate under what terms Google shares their data?

And yes, this sort of thing is a risk you take when you start depending on a third party that has no contractual obligations to you. If you don't like it, don't depend on them - there are alternatives.

<comment><USER27> Just because they have the right to do it doesn't mean it's right to do it. You don't see a problem with a gigantic company using their dominance to dictate how other companies do business? When Microsoft did this, it was called a Monopoly. Now when Google does this, it's 'liberation'?

<comment><USER29> Difference is, google gives the same rights to its users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> My question is: Why did they wait until now?

<comment><USER31> Negotiations for reciprocity probably failed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I like the spirit and educational value of this move. Doesn't this make it difficult, however, for new developers to leverage google's contact data? Will they have to go through an approval process?

</comment><comment><USER33> What would this mean for Facebook if Yahoo and MS followed suit?

</comment><comment><USER34> > _"Facebook has never allowed users to export the contact information of > their friends. This has been a gripe against the social network for years, > because there's never been an easy way to pick up and leave Facebook with > your own data in tow."_

Isn't that factually incorrect? I seem to recall Facebook offering CSV exports of friends' contact information from the very beginning, along with SVG graphs of your social connections.

<comment><USER35> Link please? If I'd known such a thing existed I'd have been using it years ago.

The only way I know of to pull contact info from Facebook is to use my Droid's excellent contact syncing, and even that's one-way and can't add any data to my Google Contacts.

<comment><USER34> It was removed years ago, before Facebook was generally available outside of Zuck-blessed institutions, but I definitely recall using it during the 2004-2005 academic year. I'm mainly contesting the absolute claim that Facebook has _never_ allowed this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Twitter and all the other services should do the same. Isn't fb the only big social service that's not participating in open social?

</comment><comment><USER37> Finally. Google is once again doing some good.

</comment><comment><USER38> Wonderful. Now that corporations grok the idea of reciprocity--a difficult thing to do because of the ingrained internalized tendency of people to submit to unilateral corporate demands, it's time for individuals to demand the same thing from content providers to whom they provide personal information.

</comment><comment><USER39> > And, if it really came down to it, Facebook has one other way to get > Google's contact data. Google is going to still allow users to download > their contacts in a spreadsheet — Facebook could simply ask users to upload > that file.

Is he kidding?! Noone would bother with that.

</comment><comment><USER40> Looks like the pimps are fighting over the data again.

</comment><comment><USER14> Is this socialist?

<comment><USER38> How could it possibly be socialist for Google not to agree to Facebook's unilateral non-reciprocated use of Google's own social network data? Are you saying that it's non-socialist only if Google simply hands their social network over to Facebook user by user, because even the thought of non- compliance with a corporate policy is necessarily socialist?</comment></comment>


Australian laws can't stop spread of suicide footage on TikTok - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/sep/09/australian-laws-cant-stop-spread-of-suicide-footage-on-tiktok <comment><USER2> I think you cannot do that on the net anyway. You may be able to restrict the audience, but do that too aggressive and people share the video even more on other channels. It also just creates an infrastructure for censorship.

That of course would mean that the issue of suicide needs to be addressed to mitigate the issue. Ugh...</comment>


Show HN: I built a neumorphic prototype of my own app focusing on UX - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/m1guelpf/status/1229559537289637890 <comment><USER2> Not sure what on earth a neuromorphic design is but from the animation it looks very much like Motif or OpenLook. This is a good thing compared to the flat everything hipster mess of the last decade.

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's some more info on the style: [https://uxdesign.cc/neumorphism-in-user- interfaces-b47cef3bf...](https://uxdesign.cc/neumorphism-in-user- interfaces-b47cef3bf3a6)</comment></comment>


Issuehunter, crowdfunding github issues - <AUTHOR> http://issuehunter.co/ <comment><USER2> Cool! I've seen a few of these pop up recently - <http://openissu.es/> is a project being built by some Flatiron School students.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great resource, thanks. I think we need tools like these.

I'm trying to build a service to help devs get paid for their contribution to the Open Source community and to get things done faster and hopefully better by paying for development.</comment></comment>


Finding Your Own Health Insurance - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/business/smallbusiness/27sbiz.html?ex=1364270400&en=fb34b5a22a9e2747&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> I used ehealthinsurance.com to find a plan for myself when I got to college. I went with an HMO to keep costs down for myself, and really only bought it for "just in case" scenarios.

On the other hand, most people don't seem to know that the vast majority of doctors are perfectly willing to negotiate rates with people who are uninsured. You're not going to get much of a break on your bill when you have a sore throat and need some antibiotics, but if you need an outpatient surgery, for example, you can expect steep reductions.

I was in that situation and the surgeon cut his rate in half and charged me nothing for any follow up office visits, which went on for some two or three months. The hospital operating room charge was the most expensive part of the whole equation, but they still dropped about 30% off their rates if I paid in full up front, which wasn't a problem with a credit card that I keep paid off.

All in all, it still cost me several grand to have the surgery done, which would have been the cost of several years worth of my current insurance payments. On the upside, I got to shop around for a doctor I was comfortable with and had faith in, as opposed to having a much smaller pool to choose from with an HMO.

Something else you could look in to is a health savings account. Basically, it's a tax free savings account that can only be used to pay for medical expenses unless you want to be taxed on what you withdraw from it, kind of like an IRA. The idea is that you should put the same amount in that account as you would pay an insurance company, but it's still your money. If you don't end up having to spend it, it's still in your pocket as opposed to an insurance company's coffers. If you're diligent about making deposits to it, that's probably the best way to go if you don't have some sort of corporate or government health care to draw from.

<comment><USER3> It's important to distinguish between HSA's (good for some) and FSA's (use it or lose it), which are what most employers offer.

Also, FSAs (and maybe some HSAs?) have no benefit if you're itemizing your deductions on your tax returns.

<comment><USER2> I believe HSAs give you similar tax benefits as IRAs once you hit retirement age, although I don't know anything about what happens before that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The best insurance when you're self employed is your spouse's :-)

I get medical + dental for $150/month directly from a major provider, which isn't unreasonable. It helps that I'm young and healthy though.

</comment><comment><USER5> Massachusetts has the Insurance Partnership program which reimburses a part of the insurance premium of your business and yourself. Additionally, there's another program called the Commonwealth Connector that gives anybody 26 and under the ability to purchase good health insurance from a major carrier for about $150/mo regardless of income. Finally, Commonwealth Care is a program that will pay between a portion to the full amount of the costs of one's health insurance of residents who make 30,000 dollars a year and less.

</comment><comment><USER6> An agent I know pointed me to <http://www.onlineinsurancecorp.com> where I got the following:

      $1000 Deductible
      20%(me)/80%(them) split from $1000-$3000
      100% coverage over $3000
      $30 office visit copay

For $55.28/mo. Of course, I'm 24 and got the 'healthy lifestyle bonus' ... whatever that means.

</comment><comment><USER7> My advice: go to an insurance agent, they aren't just there to get paid, they (usually) know exactly what they're talking about. Also check out the Freelancers union, because they have group-health(ish) policies to check out.</comment>


Catch-up immunization schedule for persons aged 4 months–18 years who start late - <AUTHOR> https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/catchup.html <comment><AUTHOR> In case you're interested in how this thread trended: [http://hnrankings.info/19383765/](http://hnrankings.info/19383765/) .

</comment><comment><USER2> I love how incredibly complicated all this is.

When I prepared for my visa for the US, there were complicated vaccine requirements, my doctor did her best to try to comply.

I still had one missing when I went to the embassy-approved ripoff doctor.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is this new?

<comment><USER4> It looks like it's been updated for 2019, but it's present in the Internet Archive since 2013.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to start working as a contractor? - <AUTHOR> I was offered a job as a contractor by a big company in Canada. The pay is good, around $100,000 CAD ($55/h). But so far I have only worked as permenant employees. What are your experiences working as contractor? What are to be expected? <comment><USER2> You need to factor in the following: Taxes PTO Vacation Equipment Certifications Insurance Costs of hiring people under you Mortgage/Rent Gas/Transit Costs Emergency funds

Essentially as a contractor you should be making at least 2.5x what an employee would make. So if an employee is being paid $120,000 as is in a similar position as you you should be getting paid $300,000/year so you can make the same salary + a little more for the added costs of being a contractor.

What are these extra costs you might be wondering they are: Business registration, licensing, certification, life insurance, private medical/health/dental insurance, taxes, vacation, technology, bills, travel, parking, emergency funds, liability, general and umbrella insurance, car maintenance, car fuel, carl detailing and regular cleaning, house maintenance (yard, inspections, upgrades, insurance, etc.) or rent, payroll if you get your own subcontractors, overtime pay (if you end up working 60 hours a week you need to add in the costs of this. If your employer wants you to work more than that you can renegotiate your rates to accommodate), etc.

As an employee there is about 50% or more costs that you do not see as an employee. It is known and expected that contractors will be paid way more than employees as contractors take on 100% of the risks.

<comment><USER3> > car maintenance, car fuel, carl detailing and regular cleaning, house > maintenance (yard, inspections, upgrades, insurance, etc.) or rent

These are all expenses that have nothing do with being a contractor vs an employee. Only some of both category will need them.

<comment><USER4> If you work at home, while those things would need to be done anyway, should be piped through your _business_ to some extent since your business is taking advantage of those resources.

2.5x is the golden rule. You will need to double the salary to cover additional expenses (some of which weren't mentioned, like employer's side of FICA in the US, time spent on sales because contracts end, legal, etc.) you will incur. The .5 of that equation is your profit. Because you're running a business.

<comment><USER5> 3x though if you can land 12 months or greater contracts id say 2.5 is just about acceptable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Also Canadian but I typically contract to US companies and have for the last 8 years or so.

Put away a nice big rainy day fund. I try to aim for 3-6 months of full living expenses. You'll need this to fill the gaps between contracts.

For me, contracts typically last around two years or slightly less. This is probably anecdotal, so take it with a grain of salt.

It usually takes me between 2 to 4 months to find a new contract, but I work strictly remote, so your mileage may vary. Try to keep your finger on the pulse of what's going on. If you can figure out when your contract will end, this will help mitigate the amount of time you spend running on rainy day money.

Pay your income tax installments on time. Every day you go without paying them costs you interest to CRA. On the topic of CRA, get an accountant to help you figure out what you can expense. You can expense all kinds of things including utilities and part of your mortgage.

Get a GST/HST number if you're making more than 30k. You'll have to pay GST if the work you are doing is not done on a remote server out of country.

That's all I can think of off the cuff. Get in touch if you have any questions

Contacting has been a great experience for me but it takes some time to get used to the risk and learning to anticipate the future.

Good luck!

<comment><USER7> Hi Can you tell me something about your remote working experience? What software stack do you work on? How do you find clients? Do you cold call/email companies or something else? How do you keep track of hours? Thanks

<comment><USER6> Python and Javascript mostly. I just use online job boards, communities like HN and reddit, slack communities, etc. Close to zero networking, though I'm sure it would help. I wrote an article a little while ago about how I approach finding remote jobs, if that helps

[https://hackernoon.com/how-i-find-six-figure-remote- software...](https://hackernoon.com/how-i-find-six-figure-remote-software- developer-jobs-c01e47b3e64)

The contracts are usually full time equivalent and I usually only have the one, so tracking time is pretty easy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I contracted for about 8 months through a large staffing firm. A few things I liked:

* Hours were fairly flexible

* Not too much supervision, was mostly given things to work on and expected to finish them in a certain amount of time

* Didn't get pulled in to as many meetings in the office

* The pay was excellent

Some things I didn't like:

* No/little vacation/pto/sick

* If you don't work, you don't get paid (if you're paid hourly)

* No/little job security. I was around for 2 rounds of layoffs and had a young child at home, so this wasn't ideal

At the end of the day it made more sense for me to go back to a normal employment role due to family and a few other factors with job security. I did enjoy my time as a contractor though. Enough so that I still pick up hours through some old employers occasionally.

<comment><AUTHOR> The flexible hour and no much supervision sounds excellent! Does that mean you can come to work late or leave work early as long as you work for 8 hours a day?

<comment><USER9> I get to do that as a normal FTE. Hell, I don't even have to work 8 hrs/day; the only requirement is that I work 80 hours every two weeks. I thought that was pretty standard in the tech world. Is it not?

<comment><USER5> For salaried supposedly so - its up to you to manage your time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have done contracting for a long time. One thing to consider is that if you are not careful your career will stagnate. While employees are moving up the chain you are stuck at your level forever. To get around this you must establish yourself as an expert in an area so you can charge higher rates.

<comment><USER11> I left contracting and took a full time position for this reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Did this transition 10 years ago (Brazil). It takes some discipline. I guess the $100,000 CAD is not that good if you are working full time for them (specially in the most expensive provinces) because you will not have time for business development - and having just one big client is putting all eggs in one basket.

In USA health insurance is probably the most expensive thing for a contractor but I guess in Canada you have your bases covered.

My advice is to subcontract other people as soon as possible and invest the extra time to learn about sales, marketing and negotiation, then go after new business. Currency exchange rates are excellent for subcontracting from Brazil or Argentina.

Good luck and drop an email if you want to ask anything.

<comment><USER13> Nice to hear your history. I'm very interested in the details of your transition (pros and cons). Are you from Brazil? Can I send you an email for a little chat?

Thanks.

<comment><USER12> Sure man, shoot. And if by any means you get nearby São Paulo lets have a coffee/beer/whatever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> $55/hr is not what it seems in Canada, especially since it's likely the first offer you go. You will take home closer to $30-45/hr or less the first few years while your first time and ongoing expenses balance out.

Employees who have a hourly before tax pay of $25/hr often cost $40/hr to the employer with their contributions. Add benefits and other costs to this.

You are not a contractor, you are a small business and will have to carry the costs of small business.

I would get some local advice. Also to be a contractor in Canada under law you must meet the burden of being an independent contractor (buying all of your own equipment, having expenses, have risk of losing work) and have more than one customer.

Contracting is awesome. I have written about it before - learning about the difference between being a freelancer, contractor, and consultant will go a long way to help you assess your value offering and opportunities that come your way.

I'm Canadian and have been a contractor since I was 19 or so, happy to chat offline if needed.

</comment><comment><USER15> Depending on how you'll work and charge for time worked, you may want to factor that in the price too. I'm typically a sole person responsible for frontend dev, so most of the work time involves writing code or specifications and very little is communication. Flexible hours and remote work also mean that I'm not charging for slacking around the cooler, or having a lunch.

I just can't do 8h days 5 times a week of this kind of work consistently. So if you compare/base your compensation to FTE, factor in that no FTE comes to work in the morning, writes code for 8h straight and goes home. I add 30% just for this over the FTE salary, aside from other differences.

</comment><comment><USER16> One thing I could never figure out was how to do business development while simultaneously working full time as a contractor. I just didn't have the energy or time to continue developing relationships while also focusing on existing client's problems. Thus when contracts ended it was a rough transition from one job to another.

Have a plan for that.

<comment><USER5> That's why you have agents

<comment><USER16> Please tell me where I can find an agent who will find and maintain a steady stream of clients for me, and what the catch is.

Not "leads", actual qualified clients ready to pay for my service if I should accept the terms.

<comment><USER5> Almost all tech recruitment agencies have a contract side - do you not know how the recruitment industry works?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I just made the transition to contractor/consultant/freelancer. Some thoughts more on the consultant side:

\- Logistics: set up a domain with a one-pager landing page[1], get some simple business cards, and get a work email. I ended up spending $50 for an LLC and getting a business bank account and card. I use Freshbooks for tracking time, expenses, and sending invoices.

\- Legal: Get a lawyer (and a tax person) who understands what you're doing. It's worth the <$1000 you'll spend just for peace of mind. I found mine through a local startup incubator. Your lawyer can draw up a Master Services Agreement you sign with clients once that goes over IP etc. Then for each project, you simply sign a one-pager Statement of Work that has your rate, scope of work, duration, etc (which can be updated and expanded as you go by re-signing).

\- Getting clients: this is literally a sales/marketing funnel. Share your business with your network [2], start getting incoming leads from folks, screen clients [3], closing contracts. This is actually one of the reasons I decided to consult, I want more hands on sales experience. Advice from a friend: spend min 1h each day emailing or whatever else necessary to land new clients.

\- Doing work: take on a customer-facing mindset (like you would in a support role)--make them feel comfortable, make them look good, and make them successful. Obviously makes sure your work is incredibly good--your best sales channel should be referrals.

Maybe this goes without saying, but all of the above is MUCH easier if you have genuine experience and expertise. I wouldn't recommend this for someone in their first 5y of being an engineer/designer etc--build specific experience in an area and make the jump later (for ex, I lead a design team at a YC startup and taught design at UM, not sure I would have done this 5y ago).

[1] [http://directedworks.com](http://directedworks.com)

[2] [https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6401496...](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6401496572122718208)

[3] [https://muledesign.com/designbook/screener.html](https://muledesign.com/designbook/screener.html) (from [https://abookapart.com/products/design-is-a- job](https://abookapart.com/products/design-is-a-job))

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi sampl, thanks for taking the time to comment! I have less than 5 years of experience, but apparently the company is in need of contractors so they offered me the job without hesitation. I am wondering if there is anything I should consider before taking the job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Are you hourly? Do you get vacation? Do you get medical, 401k?

I have done both, and I typically factor it all in for pay. If you're hourly that means that you get paid for what you work, which is great if you've ever worked a salaried job and put in 50 hours a week.

But it also means that you won't get vacation (most likely) so you either have to make up for that or factor in the amount of days you don't want to work into your schedule. So if you want to take 3 weeks off a year, factor that into your pay and reduce it accordingly.

If you get paid overtime, then factor that in as well. This all sounds like a lot but my rule of thumb is as a contractor I should be making at least 20% more than as a FTE. This isn't the case based on my last job of 50+ hr weeks.

That isn't even to start into how you approach the team and your code. As a Individual Contributing contractor (non-contract to hire), you probably won't be doing maintenance, setting schedule, or a lot of other project planning like activities. You'll be laying tracks down how they want. That isn't to say you can't make suggestions, and make the code more maintainable but that's not your primary focus once you're on site, it's to fit in to the team and support them. To make them better where they'll accept advice and to follow coding standards where they won't. While this is also true of FTE in a lot of cases, you aren't going to be maintaining this beast so if you bring it up (typically a few times) and they shoot you down then you did your best.

Don't go rogue, if you see a better way to do something and you want to show them, it's OK to work up a POC but I typically don't charge for that if they don't take it.

This is ALL my opinion, I've seen so many different types of contractors, some don't care, some go rogue and do whatever. The whole point is that at the end of the day you have a set time on the project and you have to keep that in mind.

EDIT: I use pomodoros to justify to myself the hours I'm billing. This is a personal technique I really like, but it helps me identify when I'm going over and under what I should be doing in a day and to have a justification to myself (meetings or other such things).

<comment><USER19> Just to point out, if the salary is listed in CAD, then medical and 401k are not going to be relevant. I'm not sure how payroll taxes and retirement savings work in Canada, but it's bound to be very different compared to the USA.

<comment><USER20> Can be interpreted as corresponding healthcare insurance and pension fund taxes/expenses.

<comment><USER19> I thought Canada had universal healthcare?

<comment><USER21> To some extent, ambulance is usually not covered by the oui plan (but an order of magnitude cheaper than in the US), prescription medicines aren't 100% (but also much much cheaper than in the US anyway), neither is dental or vision. But your hospital stay is free, and so are doctor and specialists visits. If you have a health plan through work, or costs 300-500 per month in my experience and is a benefit so you only pay the taxes on it and then it covers dental, vision, sometimes alternative medicine, psychologist, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I sort of slipped into contract work this year. After ~5 years of full time work I'd had enough, and I quit my job in January to do more things that I wanted to do (spend time outdoors, work on side projects etc.)

A few months ago I was contacted by a previous employer, asking if I'd be interested in a short-term contract gig (similar pay to what you're describing, but in Australia).

I'm coming to the end of this contract and I have another one lined up once I'm done, working 4 days a week from home and making my own hours.

I have to say that I love the freedom and extra money contracting has given me. Of course, there are a lot of extra costs to consider (no paid leave or superannuation, need public liability and professional indemnity insurance), but even considering all of that I'm better off financially that I was at any previous full-time job.

I wouldn't recommend contracting if you're only just living within your means (e.g. paying off a hefty mortgage and supporting a family) where being let go would leave you in an untenable financial position. Contractors generally have far fewer rights than a full-time employee, and my current agreement states that my contract can be terminated with a day's notice (YMMV).

I hope you have the same experience I've had, all the best!

<comment><USER23> To be fair, you can be let go without notice in the US as well. I was recently let go without notice and I was a salaried employee at the company.

</comment></comment><comment> q-base Raise your rates and concentrate on delivering value.

First contract won't give you the best rate and you will most likely not be in a position to negotiate a great deal. But that does not mean you should not try! Negotiate, negotiate, negotiate.

Delivering value is different than just doing your "job". Help the business and carry more than your weight. This can also mean questioning(in a polite and constructive way) what you are doing. If you can see that the problem could be solved in a better way, then speak up.

Once you have shown your value, then you are in a better position to negotiate - so use it. The more you know a business the more you are worth to them. The more experience you have as a contractor the more you are worth to new clients.

BUT as someone else also very wisely pointed out. It is a game of diminishing returns. By being a contractor you also somewhat step out of "normal" career advances. You can raise your prices up until a point, where without a doubt you can live a very, very comfortable life. But 10 years down the road you are not necessarily advanced to a higher position. Which can be fine, but you need to think about it of course.

</comment><comment><USER24> Have you already negotiated with them? (@techjuice brings up a great list of points which could be negotiated). Is the contract signed? Is 100k their first offer?

You could contact 10x Management (they offer "Agent on Demand"[1] which was discussed on HN[2]) for help / guidance. I've been represented by them for 5 years and they do tremendous work (they're professional agents / negotiators..!)

Email me if you want more info (email in profile). I'm Canadian and have been doing nothing but contract work for US customers for the past 5 years.

[1] [http://www.10xagentondemand.com/](http://www.10xagentondemand.com/)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16494677](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16494677)

</comment><comment><USER25> Generally speaking, you want to be targeting ~2x your FTE salary as a contractor rate, and your floor should probably be somewhere north of 1.5x. So if you were making $50k/yr before, this is a good offer; if you were making $80k/yr, it's not a good offer.

</comment><comment><USER26> Not sure what is the job and market like in Canada but I think the contractor gig should pay at minimum twice of your permanent position. That should compensate all benefits you would get from permanent role and risk of switching when they decide to not extend you for another 3/6/12 months.

</comment><comment><USER27> I've worked as a contractor in the US only. Other than tax paperwork, which is minimal (but can have a lot of ramifications come tax day), and a few managerial differences (ie work scheduling) there was no difference. Congratulations and have fun!

<comment><USER5> I hope you got paid 2.5 to 3x for the extra risk other wise why bother.

<comment><USER27> It all depends on what you feel comfortable asking for. At first, no, I didn't do great, the more experience I got, the more comfortable I got asking for more because I was getting more done, and thus not as many hours to get projects done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I don't know where you are in Canada, but I would not consider $100k a good rate for a contract position. I would double it to consider it a "good" salary for a contracted position.

</comment><comment><USER29> I have been working a Software Developer / Independent Contractor in Toronto for the last five years doing mobile-related projects. I had gigs with a bank, a telecom company, a VC-funded startup and a couple of development studios. Here are a few insights.

* You earn more than full-timers, the performance expectations from you are also higher. If working with other devs in your area, you are expected to be stronger and more efficient than full-timers to justify your salary and status of a contractor. If working on the project alone, you are obviously expected to be the technical authority and go-to person regarding any issues related to the technology stack you are working with.

* Once you are on a project, you have less freedom of choice than the full timers what kind of work to do. Usually, you will get what the full timers don't want to or don't have the expertise to do. For example, at a bank, the full timers usually implement new features, while the contractors clean up the bugs. Also, banks and big telecoms have separate dedicated budgets for contractors.

* So far, I have been lazy looking for gigs, finding them mostly through recruiters. My biggest gig and the one I mostly enjoy has been lasting intermittently for almost three years. I got that far with the client by delivering over and over again results above and beyond the client's expectations.

* The mindset of a contractor is different than the mindset of an employee. You will no longer care about meetings, "promotions", titles, asking/getting vacation days, Monday Syndrome/TGIF, performance reviews etc. In fact, your "performance review" will be whether or not your contract gets extended. You will care about getting your own (best) hardware equipment and software/dev tools licenses, assuming responsibility over professional development and delivering the best results you can. Also, as a new adopted mindset, you need not care what kind of work you get given by your client, your goal is to deliver excellent results for any kinds of projects.

* Starting rate on a gig is usually determined by the market with ~10% negotiation room. For example, the recruiter will call you and have a second or third question "so what is your hourly rate?". If you name a figure 10% higher than what they have in mind, they will usually say that is above their range. From what I know, the reason for that is companies have fixed budget for contractors and when starting the search, during the conference call with recruiters, they set their rate expectations.

* So far, contracting proved to be so much more fun and intellectually and financially rewarding than full-time employment. Once you start, there is no going back :))

Best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER30> For me the pay increase made it a great switch. But I would say I could not do it if I had kids. The job stability would be needed.

<comment><USER26> But what if it is remote contract? Definitely anyone with some financial cushion and family should consider.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> One of my friend created British Virgin Company (contracts from Canadian companies) and moved to Thailand.

But he pays no taxes.

Now he is on a student visa there.

And if you do not have a family it might work for you.</comment>


Hiroshima (1946) - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/08/31/hiroshima <comment><USER2> It's funny how war is always glorious from the point of view of the aggressor and always sad from the point of view of the aggressed (sp?), even when they're the same person! How we feel depends on who's story we're reading at the time.

"She had not had an easy time. Her husband, Isawa, had gone into the Army just after Myeko was born, and she had heard nothing from or of him for a long time, until, on March 5, 1942, she received a seven-word telegram: "Isawa died an honorable death at Singapore." "

In case you don't know what her husband would have contributed to in Singapore - "between 25,000 and 50,000 ethnic Chinese in Singapore and Malaya ... were rounded up and taken to deserted spots around the island and killed systematically." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_occupation_of_Singapo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_occupation_of_Singapore)

<comment><USER3> This reminds me of Amy Goodman and Allan Nairn's story when they were doing journalism in East Timor:

"Allan suggested we walk to the front of the crowd between the soldiers and the Timorese, because although we knew that the army had committed many massacres, we hoped that we, as foreign journalists, could serve as a shield for the Timorese. Standing with headphones on and microphone and camera out in full view, we went and stood in the middle of the road, looking straight at the approaching troops. Behind us, the crowd was hushed as some Timorese tried to turn away, but they were hemmed in by cemetery walls.

The soldiers marched straight up to us. They never broke their stride. We were enveloped by the troops, and when they got a few yards past us, within a dozen yards of the Timorese, they raised their rifles to their shoulders all at once, and they opened fire. The Timorese, in an instant, were down, just torn apart by the bullets. The street was covered with bodies, covered with blood. And the soldiers just kept on coming. They poured in, one rank after another. They leaped over the bodies of those who were down. They were aiming and shooting people in the back. I could see their limbs being torn, their bodies exploding. There was blood spurting out into the air. The pop of the bullets, everywhere. And it was very organized, very systematic. The soldiers did not stop. They just kept on shooting until no one was left standing.

A group of soldiers grabbed my microphone and threw me to the ground, kicking and punching me. At that point, Allan threw himself on top of me, protecting me from further injury. The soldiers then used their rifle butts like baseball bats, beating Allan until they fractured his skull. As we sat on the ground, Allan, covered in blood, a group of soldiers lined up and pointed their M-16s at our heads. They had stripped us of all of our equipment. We just kept shouting, "We're from America!" In the end, they decided not to execute us."

Excerpted from [http://www.democracynow.org/2006/11/13/amy_goodman_recounts_...](http://www.democracynow.org/2006/11/13/amy_goodman_recounts_the_east_timor)

<comment><USER4> That's terrible, for sure.

The parent comment is talking about one person who could be viewed as a hero and a victim, depending on the story teller.

I don't see why the East Timor story serves as a reminder, except that it's another example of an atrocity in war.

No war is nicer than any other and you can find many, many examples of atrocities like this throughout history across the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are many views on the bombing. The difference is that Americans do not hide it. It's controversial, but people know about it.

Same with Germans. People know about how the Germans behaved in WW2, they're not proud about it, it's learned in schools, and they do not hide it.

Japan on the other side, actively hide their actions. Japanese schools present a revisionist version of history in which all their horrible and brutal war crimes never happened. The Japanese people promote a vision of Japan with a tradition full of honor and virtue. Do they teach their kids that they dropped a bomb carrying the bubonic plague? or the massacre of Nanking? the mass beheadings of people? the sexual slavery? and many other horrible crimes, even targeting kids... probably not. This is the difference.

<comment><USER6> For the record, this doesn't reflect my personal experience in Japan in any way whatsoever. People here are quite well aware of their history, but they don't understand some people's focus on Japan's most recent expansion into China and Korea any more than Americans would understand someone whose sole concern is the eradication of native Americans. This kind of "they're not sorry enough for me" discussion is fruitless, because no nation or ethnicity has a moral high ground to stand on.

Edit: I want to add that in my personal experience, there is no place on Earth that is more peaceful and _pacifistic_ than Japan in 2016. Don't pay attention to the government, which simply tows the line for America...I'm talking about the people in the cities and villages. Meanwhile, to my point above, America does nothing but wage wars since WW2. Make of that what you will.

<comment><USER7> I've been living in Japan for a couple years, and this reflects my experience too with regards to most people I've met. However, it's not just the government, but also a powerful and ageing elite which shares these views. Admittedly not people you'll meet everyday, yet they wield obvious political influence.

Anecdotally, I hadn't met any such people until yesterday, where I had to attend a rotary international conference for a scholarship I receive from them. The audience was composed of around 700 people, most of them CEOs of local corporations, politicians or otherwise wealthy and connected people. The average age must have been somewhere in the late fifties/early sixties. The invited speaker was Masahiko Fujiwara [1], a mathematician turned essayist, who probably should have stuck to number theory. It was basically an hour and a half of chauvinist propaganda, hailing the past greatness of Japan, the superiority of the Japanese people, and mocking (I quote and translate) "Americans, Europeans and white people" at every turn with racial stereotypes. And the entire audience was laughing and clapping their hands! It's scary to think that these people might well be a representative sample of the ruling Japanese elite.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masahiko_Fujiwara](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masahiko_Fujiwara)

<comment><USER6> Scary indeed. Those were the same people who dragged Japan into imperialism. I guess waters in Japan run deep, and there have those small-minded people in the ruling class that you find everywhere else, too.

I certainly don't see the current government of Japan reflecting the sentiments of normal people in any way whatsoever, but I think a lot of working class people feel like the government exists in a compromised world where influences of powerful nations like America and Russia use Japan as a proxy. Japan is not a passive player in that game, but the game itself doesn't seem to interest the average person. The people I know are just working hard to make ends meet and do a good job, raise a good family, etc.——normal human stuff.

I'm not so naive to think that Japanese people aren't capable of being racist assholes, but I would say the prevailing sentiment here is more humility than arrogance or conniving. I'm a white American who married into a Japanese family with a (very) distinguished naval history. My ancestry here is definitely elite, but the money and power are a shadow of what they once were——and that's probably a good thing. There's no room for hubris when you're on the ropes. Everyone just has their focus at the human scale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> WWII is falling out of living memory very quickly. It should be of no surprise that it is becoming every more glorified. Europe is shifting dangerously to the right. The US is about to elect a hawk (both of them are hawks). An Asian nation (this time China) is talking expansion, in influence if not in literal territory. The western world is split on the issue of migrants fleeing local conflicts. And everyone talks of tightening boards. All the ducks are lining up nicely for the day we forget the lesson.

There is only so much room in Canada.

<comment><USER9> Africa is back as a colony of China this time

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It took me about an hour to read this whole thing. If you are like me and find the Hiroshima event fascinating, I highly recommend doing this. The piece follows several people who ended up in a park together the night after the bomb, and hauntingly captures the mood of that night and the horrifying physical details of what people went through. I definitely think I'll remember some images from this article for a while.

<comment><USER10> The article was long ago published as a stand-alone book. I bought and read the book before I ever knew it came from the New Yorker. It's one of the most haunting things I've read, and I guard that book jealously, which is a long- winded way of recommending you find the book and keep it around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The following summary by Alex Wellerstein represents his understanding of the consensus view. Notably the idea that the bombings where carefully motivated by some sort of ethical calculus is not something that historians now believe. From [http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/03/08/the-decision-to- us...](http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/03/08/the-decision-to-use-the-bomb- a-consensus-view/)

* It's not really clear that Truman ever made much of a "decision," or regarded the bomb/invasion issue as being mutually exclusive. Truman didn't know if the bomb would end the war; he hoped, but he didn't know, couldn't know. The US was still planning to invade in November 1945. They were planning to drop as many atomic bombs as necessary. There is no contemporary evidence that suggests Truman was ever told that the causalities would be X if the bomb was dropped, and Y if it was not. There is no evidence that, prior to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that Truman was particularly concerned with Japanese causalities, radiation effects, or whether the bombs were ethical or not. The entire framing of the issue is ahistorical, after-the-fact, here. It was war; Truman had atomic bombs; it was taken for granted, at that point, that they were going to be used.

* Defeat is not surrender. Japan was certainly defeated by August 1945, in the sense that there was no way for them to win; the US knew that. But they hadn't surrendered, and the peace balloons they had put out would have assumed not that the Emperor would have stayed on as some sort of benign constitutional monarch (much less a symbolic monarch), but would still be the god-head of the entire Japanese country, and still preserve the overall Japanese state. This was unacceptable to the US, and arguably not for bad reasons. Japanese sources show that the Japanese military was willing to bleed out the country to exact this sort of concession from the US.

* American sources show that the primary reason for using the bomb was to aid in the war against Japan. However, the fact that such weapons would be important in the postwar period, in particular vis-à-vis the USSR, was not lost on American policymakers. It is fair to say that there were multiple motivations for dropping the bomb, and specifically that it looks like there was a primary motivation (end the war) and many other "derivative" benefits that came from that (postwar power).

* Japanese sources, especially those unearthed and written about by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, make it clear that prior to the use of the atomic bombs, the Japanese cabinet was still planning on fighting a long battle against invasion, that they were hoping to exact the aforementioned concessions from the United States, and that they were aware (and did not care) that such an approach would cost the lives of huge numbers of Japanese civilians. It is also clear that the two atomic bombs did shock them immensely, and did help break the stalemate in the cabinet — but that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria also shocked them immensely, perhaps equally, maybe even more (if you have a choice between being occupied by Truman or occupied by Stalin, the decision is an easy one). But there is no easy way to disentangle the effects of the bombs or the Soviet invasion, in this sense — they were both immensely influential on the final decision. That being said, using the bomb as an "excuse" (as opposed to "we are afraid of Russians") did play well with the Japanese public and made surrender appear to be a sensible, viable option in a culture where surrender was seen as a complete loss of honour.

<comment><USER12> This is an excellent post that anyone thinking about Hiroshima should read.

This post by the same author also makes a convincing argument that the beginning of the firebombing campaign against Japan with the bombing of Tokyo (in which more people died than at Hiroshima) was the unnoticed ethical turning point.

[http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2012/08/06/hiroshima- at-67-th...](http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2012/08/06/hiroshima-at-67-the- line-we-crossed/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's very easy to judge past America 60 years from the moment.

Say you're about to be shipped out to run up a hill and killed by Japanese machine guns.

Wouldn't you prefer Truman use a super weapon to end the war ?

<comment><USER14> I think would much rather my leaders just sign some sort of an armistice agreement rather than annihilate "enemy" civilians.

I mean there are ways to end a war without total destruction.

And the logic of killing civilians to save soldiers is just .. no comment.

<comment><USER15> >I think would much rather my leaders just sign some sort of an armistice agreement rather than annihilate "enemy" civilians.

Great idea! Now, how do we persuade the other side to sign that agreement?

<comment><USER16> You're making the assumption that you -need- the other side to sign an agreement. Japan was completely contained by the US at this point in the war.

This was a decision to hasten the end of the war, but did we ever actually leave? We still have bases in Japan. This was about hastening an end with a guarantee that the US would have full control of Japan.

Please don't misunderstand me though, Japan needed to be defeated thoroughly, it had acted and performed gross injustices against many people in the world. But these bombs were not necessary.

<comment><USER17> So maybe just a tug o' war or a water balloon fight to decide the winner of the Pacific War?

We could have used those 1 million Purple Hearts we produced for the invasion of Japan for anyone who stubbed a toe during all the festivities.

<comment><USER16> Read Howard Zinn's, 'A People's History of the United States', then get back to me.

<comment><USER17> I will check out a summary and if it looks good I will give it a read. My googling makes it look a bit revisionist but I will check it out. Since we are starting a book club try 'With the Old Breed' by Eugene Sledge and/or 'Flyboys' by James Bradley to see the hell on earth the Japanese military had exported all over the Pacific. I was actually somewhat mentally exhausted by the end of 'With the Old Breed' and was glad when it was over. The book described something horrifying and grueling with no end in sight so I can't imagine how it would feel to actually have lived it.

<comment><USER16> James Clavell's fictional account based on his experiences in a Japanese prison camp is wonderful read too, 'King Rat'.

I talked with my grandfather often about his service as a submariner in the pacific, brutal, but oddly he never hated the Japanese. He saved that for the French.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I read the book version of this essay shortly before visiting Japan. It is strange to stand next to the one preserved ruined building at ground zero and think that there was once an atomic fire storm in that spot.

</comment><comment><USER19> The US started targeting defenseless civilians in Japan via fire bombing, and the majority of the Japan's cities had already been destroyed by the time they deployed the atomic bombs. The attacks on civilians in Japan were the first examples of what is now standard procedure in the air force, now known as "strategic bombing".

Mark Selden, a researcher at Cornell University, wrote an excellent article detailing this: [http://apjjf.org/-Mark- Selden/2414/article.html](http://apjjf.org/-Mark-Selden/2414/article.html)

He points out how the attacks on civilians in Dresden, for example, were met with shock by Europeans at the time. But the Americans never reacted as strongly to the same bombings in Japan.

Several cities of civilians were destroyed in the Korean War. In Vietnam city bombins and chemical weapons were deployed against civilians. Carpet bombing was the term for targeting civilians in Iraq I. Etc etc etc. It's all basically the same.

<comment><USER20> This ignores the changes since Iraq War I though. Carpet bombing is no longer standard procedure, because more accurate bombing became a lot cheaper.

<comment><USER21> " _Carpet bombing is no longer standard procedure "_

Really?

0\. [http://cursor.org/stories/casualty_count.htm](http://cursor.org/stories/casualty_count.htm) 1\. [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/nov/01/afghanistan.ter...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/nov/01/afghanistan.terrorism6) 2\. [https://warisboring.com/b-52s-in-massive-mid-east-carpet- bom...](https://warisboring.com/b-52s-in-massive-mid-east-carpet-bombing- exercise-cf9aaa5e06ab#.q1khlkbnx)

etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cool. I hope Americans remember this as we consider electing someone who thinks nuclear war is a bargaining tool.

"If they do, they do" is not something a President should be saying about other nations engaging in nuclear war. Go mess up someone else's planet, Trump.

</comment><comment><USER22> The more searing question for me is the argument that the shock created by the atomic bombings has successfully prevented a WW 111. I cannot come to terms with this argument though I slightly tend to agree with it. On the other hand, the bombings were done just to force a japanese surrender, not with a foresighted view of stopping all the horrible future wars in this planet. Also, I'm not sure whether vietnam, gulf wars will be considered under the "world war" category as a lot of them happened after the japanese bombings.

Now, I just resign myself that for whatever reason it happened, and let us learn whatever we could from it.

</comment><comment><USER23> Wow that was a great read. Really shocking about what to took to survive Hiroshima. The bomb, fires, flooding, radiation sickness.

</comment><comment><USER24> The Bomb Didn't Beat Japan… Stalin Did [1]

[1] [http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat- japa...](http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin- did/)

</comment><comment><USER25> I read through this, revisited some of the images of the aftermath.

I don't think I'll be able to eat meat today, my stomach is turning and I feel like I could vomit.

It is so painful figuring that this is one of the "better" possible outcomes of the war.

<comment><USER26> It's one of the usual outcomes of war in general. Humans have been maiming, burning, torturing, cutting, asphyxiating, and otherwise abusing other humans for all of recorded history.

The only difference is that nuclear weapons are industrialised death machines - much more _efficient_ than the usual manual methods.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> And the states continue to get away with things like this to this day.

<comment><USER28> I don't recall the US nuking anybody recently. Did I miss something?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It's ok, everything worked out in the end. US & Japan turned the whole relationship thing around.

<comment><USER6> Well, that is actually a good point. As President Obama said in anticipation of his historic visit to Hiroshima this year (paraphrasing): the relationship of Japan and the United States should serve as an example of how we can build a lasting peace from bitter enmity.

It's also worth noting that President Obama and the G7 will be meeting on Ise Shima, near Japan's most sacred Shinto site, Ise Jingu. It's significant because the most important shrines of Ise Jingu are rebuilt on the site every twenty years. I've visited Ise Jingu a few times, and the incredible craftsmanship of the buildings is jaw-dropping. Every piece of ancient Hinoki cedar used in the buildings is chiseled and sanded to perfection. They've been re-building the shrines every 20 years for almost a thousand years. Among other things, it's a metaphor for this whole conversation about forging a new tradition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> > In the street, the first thing he saw was a squad of soldiers who had been > burrowing into the hillside opposite, making one of the thousands of dugouts > in which the Japanese apparently intended to resist invasion, hill by hill, > life for life; the soldiers were coming out of the hole, where they should > have been safe, and blood was running from their heads, chests, and backs. > They were silent and dazed.

However I may feel about the bomb having been used, I don't doubt it saved more lives than it took. As for all the civilians and children and other non- combatants, I doubt the tragedy would have been less without the bomb. It's hard for me to reconcile how such an obvious force of destruction could be more desirable than an invasion, and that's probably because it's very hard for me to understand the destruction an invasion creates. An invasion's impact isn't as easy to put into neat pictures and anecdotes as a singular experience that a bomb explosion creates.

There's some question if the ramp up of the Soviets on their eastern border had more to do with Japan's surrender than the atomic bombs we dropped. I'm not sure there's a clear answer there.

<comment><USER31> By this logic, the US should just nuke any area causing problems for it.

Iraq invades Kuwait? Nuke it.

North Korea developing weapons of mass destruction? Nuke it.

Why mess around with invasions.

Note the scientists who developed the bomb begged the US government to first drop one off the coast of Japan to demonstrate to them what they were facing.

Instead we killed tens of thousands of civilians on purpose, not once, but went back a second time. The lucky ones were vaporized instantly. The unlucky ones died over weeks in horrible pain from radiation and mass organ failure.

<comment><USER32> > By this logic, the US should just nuke any area causing problems for it.

I don't think you actually understand said logic. US was in war with Japan for a long time, and was steadily winning; however, against self-interest of their country, Japanese command would not surrender. Continuing assault, US inflicted enormous civilian losses on Japan. The firebombing of Tokyo alone was at least as deadly as Hiroshima atomic bomb. And yet, Japan command did not want to surrender. Only atomic bomb finally succeed in ending the war.

It didn't happen because of some abstract "score"; it happened because of sheer moral shock of how one bomb was able to destroy an entire city. If US had decided to just bomb Hiroshima with conventional methods, inflicting exactly the same amount of death and destruction, it most likely wouldn't have ended the war.

Iraq, North Korea and other situations you can link with "this logic" are _not_ similar to this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> It must have been a surreal experience, to walk through the burning remains of your world, without an explanation as to "How".

<comment><USER34> Even with an explanation to "How", "Why" is the more common question when faced with intentional and extreme tragedy against yourself and loved ones.

<comment><USER35> Having gone through Katrina and been deployed for Fukushima, I assure you, there is plenty of time for the survivors to contemplate _all_ the questions. That is arguably part of the tragedy of survivorship: facing down _all_ the questions, and knowing with cruel certainty there will be time to face them.

<comment><AUTHOR> I also went through Katrina and the thing in this piece that reminded me the most of that experience was how people quickly became numb to the horror of their situation and dealt with things practically, one thing after the other. Or alternately became totally nonfunctional.

<comment><USER35> Agreed. Coming from the military though, it was actually somewhat reassuring. It was like going back to my old job: crisis becomes the daily grind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I have no problem with America bombing Japan with nuclear weapons. They (and Germany) deserved what they got, they started a world war and we finished it. All this American angst and apologia is coming from the anti-American intellectuals in the US. They have been spreading their propaganda unopposed for decades. The US is NOT GUILTY and owes no apologies whatsoever, Obama's pathetic mea culpa trip to Japan notwithstanding. For all you rationalists who like thought experiments (pretentiously called gedanken experiments by the same intellectuals); imagine what the world would be like if Germany and the Japanese had won WWII.

<comment><USER37> You're accusing others of propaganda while trotting out the old right-wing hobbyhorses of "anti-American intellectualism" and Obama apologizing for American foreign policy.

Your claim that he's making a "pathetic mea culpa trip to Japan," despite the White House having stated clearly that he doesn't intend to apologize for the bombings when the visits Hiroshoma, is itself propaganda.

As has been mentioned elsewhere, Germany and Japan were both incapable of winning anything when the bombs were dropped (Germany had surrendered, and Japan was wrecked,) so the outcome where they won WWII if the atomic bombs _hadn 't_ been dropped simply couldn't exist.

<comment><USER36> Do you mean the same anti-intellectual "right-wing" who thinks the USA should be a faith-based, Christian nation? You have me confused with somebody else and need to consider the fact that both the left and right are wrong.

<comment><USER37> I do consider them both wrong, but it's nevertheless the case that the bogeymen of "anti-American intellectuals" and Obama's international "apologies" have been props of the right for years. If you don't share their views, maybe don't repeat their arguments or prop up their strawmen.

<comment><USER36> So if the Right says the sun rises in the East should I repudiate that because they say it too? The American intellectuals hate America and blame America regardless of the context. That is a fact and if you are honest you can discover that fact for your self.

At least we can agree to agree, the Left and Right are a false alternative offered to the American people.

<comment><USER37> I tend to disagree with people who insist on political absolutes. Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

<comment><USER36> > Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

Isn't this an absolute? So you tend to disagree with yourself or do you make exceptions for self-contradiction?

<comment><USER37> It was a joke, but to be honest, I always make exceptions for self- contradiction and the possibility that I am unaware of my own ignorance. I believe humans are by nature contradictory, we're wired for bias confirmation, not truth. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

<comment><USER36> "I was just joking" ...always the refrain of the scoundrel when called on their BS, at least in my experience.

It is a strawman to imply that my position is that no one is allowed any contradiction or errors whatsoever. The issue is not errors of knowledge or mistakes but the failure to correct such errors when they are found. An honest man works to correct his errors and contradictions, i.e. is consistent, while the dishonest like to wallow in them or pretend they don't exist or rationalize them by misquoting Emerson.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self- Reliance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Reliance)

<comment><USER37> >It is a strawman to imply that my position is that no one is allowed any contradiction or errors whatsoever.

It's also a strawman to imply that I ever implied that.

<comment><USER36> LOL, "strawman". I don't think it means what you think it means.

Don't think we didn't noticed that you ignored the fact that you misquoted Emerson.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Strange Geopolitics of the International Cloud - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/the-strange-geopolitics-of-the-international-cloud/416370/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> This reminded me that recently a friend who works for Oracle told me that Oracle puts some of their customer data into data centers in China specifically to avoid "tough" US Data Breach laws. There is all kinds of strange things going on with the placement of cloud data</comment>


Twitter Bootstrap, Less, and Sass: Understanding Your Options for Rails 3.1 - <AUTHOR> http://rubysource.com/twitter-bootstrap-less-and-sass-understanding-your-options-for-rails-3-1/ <comment><USER2> Well-explained demystification of what's going on the scenes with each of those gems. Didn't even know they were development-only.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a great article comparing all the options for Rails 3.1</comment>


DHS Announces Expansion of Cyber Student Volunteer Initiative - <AUTHOR> http://www.dhs.gov/news/2013/12/16/dhs-announces-expansion-cyber-student-volunteer-initiative

<comment><USER2> It seems people are already downplaying this because it's volunteer. However, this is actually an awesome opportunity. First thing I see in the job posting [1] is "Security Clearance: Secret". That Secret is worth quite a bit, especially for technical positions at government contractors. That's money in the bank in the long term and can almost always guarantee a job.

Secondly, the best way to get a technical government position (it's pretty competitive), whether it's at a federal laboratory or DHS, is to get to know the right people. Yes, it's more about who you know than what you know.

[1] [https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/356670600](https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/356670600)

<comment><USER3> A Secret clearance also comes with a cost. You will have to accept a level of control from the government. You will have to agree that you will be subject to harsher penalties than a typical citizen, if you pass on ANY classified information to an authorised person. For example, reading or passing on a Snowden document, without authorisation, will become a crime for you. An individual can't revoke the clearance once granted, so the obligations last a lifetime.

A Secret clearance isn't a romantic carte blanche to read secret documents of your choosing. That world is compartmentalised and you will be fed information on a "need to know" basis. In a computer analogy, a clearance isn't a loosening of permissions, but a tightening, in that you are agreeing to harsher penalties if you stray outside the boundaries of what others decide you "need to know".

<comment><USER4> The world is _now_ compartmentalized, since Bradley Manning. We appear to have had a stretch there where they just ran a Secret Clearance wiki and document dump, and a separate TS/SCI wiki and document dump, and that was it except for the genuinely sensitive things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Even the federal government evades having to pay their interns. The DHS is looking for 100 unpaid student volunteer assignments. Oh please, having to take a free internship in one of the highest paying fields, cyber security, is ridiculous. And then having the audacity to call it an Honor's program is just abusive.

</comment><comment><USER6> The government has no business circumventing minimum wage laws.

<comment><USER7> Nor does anyone else that gets work for free and calls it an "internship".

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Reading deeper, it appears as though these interns will primarily be doing menial IT support.

The TSA job description also contains this nugget, "Assisting with Digital Forensics, e-Discovery, and cyber threat/intelligence." I would be curious to know what cyber threats/intelligence are going to be discovered via the TSA.

[https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/356670600](https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/356670600)

<comment><USER9> > The TSA job description also contains this nugget, "Assisting with Digital > Forensics, e-Discovery, and cyber threat/intelligence." I would be curious > to know what cyber threats/intelligence are going to be discovered via the > TSA.

The airport screeners aren't the whole of the TSA, just the most visible part of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I was under the impression that it was illegal to work for the federal government for free. It came up during the USG Shutdown hoopla, where workers had to expressly forbidden from anything work related.

<comment><USER11> The issue during the shutdown was that it was illegal for them to create a financial obligation for the government during the shutdown by working a job that was supposed to be paid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does it make a legal difference that it's not called an 'internship'?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's something I wondered after I had already submitted the story; I apologize if winds up being misleading. I feel the page is noteworthy either way.

Edit: the title's been changed

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> What an incredibly misleading title.</comment>


Apple sells record iPhones - <AUTHOR>

Apple sold more iPhones in the Sept quarter than all the number of iPhones sold earlier. They sold 6.9M and surpassed the 10M goal. Whoa ! The 3G is rocking. <comment><USER2> Source?

<comment><USER3> Apple's Q4 conference call. They sold more phones in the quarter than RIM. Also, they've got more than 10M phones total in the market now.

<http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/081021/aqtu138.html?.v=47></comment></comment>


Why the Rent Is Too Damn High - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/03/high_rents_america_s_ridiculous_shortage_of_apartment_buildings_is_pushing_rents_way_up_.html

<comment><USER2> As a renter with a good job and excellent this article really makes its point clear: invest in some apartment ETFs</comment>